Josie Merkle and David Vargo, veteran central Ohio actors at the peak of their form, excel in this slightly overlong 95-minute one-act.

At Thursday’s preview, they invested their hearts and souls into poignant roles laced with tragedy and adorable humor.

Such superior acting helps knit together a play that initially offers too many alternating monologues before finally connecting characters.

Vargo, adopting a rich Irish accent, plays Dan, an Irish widow haunted by the loss of his first wife. Dan’s only company is Chapatti (never seen but reacted to in pantomime), a stray dog he rescued and named after Indian bread.

Merkle, erupting in wild laughter, plays compassionate Betty, who nurtures a menagerie of cats (also unseen) and a new litter of kittens.Thanks to a chance meeting at a veterinarian’s office, this unlikely odd couple bonds over an unlikely scheme to help an old woman recover from the loss of a longtime pet.

Merkle is marvelous at layering her role with suffering, courage and realism as well as personality and sparkle. Steve Emerson’s costumes effectively delineate age, class and spirit – especially one colorful dress for Betty.

Vargo earns empathy by revealing a sweet nature undercut by intense inner conflicts pushing him to the edge of giving up.

Aided by Michael Garrett Herring’s sensitive direction, the actors persuasively inhabit each halting stage in the progressive revelations of their characters and unfolding relationship.

Herring’s bisected scenic design aptly reflects the play’s structure, with the two characters’ apartments and multiple platforms at opposite ends of the long stage, reconfigured for this production with the audience on both sides.

What might have been a predictable senior-citizen romance and still remains too much of a double character study generates enough charm and tenderness to demonstrate that it’s never too late to love.

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